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alfonsomg:

what is that platform that 99% of profitable traders use to do automated trading?

I don’t know if there are just one or two that 99% of profitable traders use.

There are loads.

Very few people using MT4 become profitable, though.

Partly because people attracted to the kind of brokers who offer mostly MT4 are likely to lose anyway, for loads of reasons including the kind of broker they’re using, and partly also because MT4 is horrible.

It’s the worst platform I’ve ever seen, by a long way, and I’ve seen a lot.

I don’t know if there are just one or two that 99% of profitable traders use.

There are loads.

Very few people using MT4 become profitable, though.

Partly because people attracted to the kind of brokers who offer mostly MT4 are likely to lose anyway, for loads of reasons including the kind of broker they’re using, and partly also because MT4 is horrible.

It’s the worst platform I’ve ever seen, by a long way, and I’ve seen a lot.

Many successful traders use Sierra Chart.

Some use Ninja Trader.

Those two are both light years ahead of MT4, anyway.

Well, I consider MT4 the entry point for amateur retail traders. It is the only platform I’ve used with real money. As far as I know for Ninjatrader you need to purchase a license or subscribe to some service (not sure). I’ve tried the demo from Interactive Brokers which is really not stable, and not intuitive to use. The real money one is stable but I still don’t have the 10K to open an account with them.

Metatrader might have bad fame because the broker at the other side have (or at least had) the tools to manipulate the quotes (I think this is only when the broker takes the other side of your trade, not when provides access to the real market - ECN). But the solution is to find a trusted broker, don’t go with dodgy ones that offer promotions or are not under regulations.

Anyway, I think the point is that profitability comes with the strategy, not with the platform. I don’t have EA experience outside of MT4.

For me for the moment MT4 is a nice platform to use: easy to use, easy to code and as far as I know I have good execution times and tight spreads.

But I couldn’t count me as a solid profitable trader yet. A year ago I made 40% in profits trading manual. This year I’m barely breaking even and it’s driving my a bit nuts. What I’m trying to do know is to automate my strategy so that I get rid of some mistakes that I make from time to time (even when I’m really disciplined).

I don’t know if there are just one or two that 99% of profitable traders use.

There are loads.

Very few people using MT4 become profitable, though.

Partly because people attracted to the kind of brokers who offer mostly MT4 are likely to lose anyway, for loads of reasons including the kind of broker they’re using, and partly also because MT4 is horrible.

It’s the worst platform I’ve ever seen, by a long way, and I’ve seen a lot.

Many successful traders use Sierra Chart.

Some use Ninja Trader.

Those two are both light years ahead of MT4, anyway.

Aaaarg, I spent 10 minutes replying you and my text is gone! I reassert myself, this layout is rubbish. At least I think I know now how to quote.

I think that profitability comes with the strategy, not the platform, provided that you have nice executions, nice spreads and the broker doesnt scam you.

I’ve only used MT4 with real money. I think that to use NinjaTrader you need to buy a license or buy a feed service to have fresh data. I’ve used Interactive Brokers paper trading TWS which is completely not stable, and the usability is rubbish. The real money TWS at least is stable. IB has very nice pricing.

MT4 is the entry level platform to amateur retail trading, and it is easy to learn and easy to code for EAs (come on guys, MQL is basically C). I’m pleased with my broker which is ECN and provides nice execution times and nice spreads.

In a nutshell, a great platform won’t make up for a bad strategy. In the future, just to get great pricing for stocks (while keeping great pricing for Forex) I want to move to IB provided that I can code my strategies easily.

Yes, at the moment I am also using MT4. I will have a look at the other platforms mentioned like Ninjatrader. Will see if youtube has a nice review about them. I do have a problem in MT4, it does not let me put a stopless less than 8 pips. This is annoying, cause Im trying to scalp the market. Maybe one of you knows how come, well good luck pippin’ anyways

I do have a problem in MT4, it does not let me put a stopless less than 8 pips. This is annoying, cause Im trying to scalp the market.

On a real money account (even in a demo one)? That is not right. You can place the stop wherever you want provided is below the Bid (when you buy) or above the Ask (when you sell). Is this using an EA? What is the error code that you get after the failure?

8 pips is a world if you are scalping. Are you sure you are not talking about 8 pippetes (1 pippete = 0.1pip)? It not right, unless you:

a) are talking by mistake about 8 pippetes (0.8 pips). Remember, if you have a 5 digits broker (99% sure) the smallest digit is not a pip, it is a pippete: 0.00001

b) you have a humongous spread (exotic pair or your broker is robbing you).

Any of those reasons might cause that your SL is falling between the Bid and the Ask, therefore the SL cant be placed.

Anyway speak with your broker. If you have a real money account (and maybe also with a demo one) they should investigate the issue and provide you with an answer.

It is very strange, when I place the stoploss too close (say 5 pips) to the current price, it says ‘Invalid S/L T/P’ and gives me an error sound. I am really talking about pips here, not pippetes. Only around 8 pips stoploss is allowed.

Also when I try to put the stoploss closer to the current price afterwards, it gives me an error sound.

I contacted my broker about it, and what they say is, there are limits to stoplosses and take profit.
There is a table on their website showing you how much stoploss you are allowed to set. For Eur/usd for example it says 4 pips (spread not included). Is this normal? Or should i change broker?
I really want to get good at scalping the 1 minute timeframe, and small stoploss levels are important for me.

I contacted my broker about it, and what they say is, there are limits to stoplosses and take profit.
There is a table on their website showing you how much stoploss you are allowed to set. For Eur/usd for example it says 4 pips (spread not included). Is this normal? Or should i change broker?
I really want to get good at scalping the 1 minute timeframe, and small stoploss levels are important for me.

I think your broker doesn’t like scalpers. It looks to me that your broker takes the other side of your order matching it with other user’s orders if they can, like an internal book keeping.

Because it’s what the people betting against them want them to use, and have promoted accordingly.

alfonsomg:

Anyway, I think the point is that profitability comes with the strategy, not with the platform.

One would think so, looking at it superficially.

I think it’s more complicated than that.

Using MT4 doesn’t help new traders at all, I think. Some of the indicators are unreliabIe, and it attracts them to EA;s, which the people betting against them love them to use, of course.

forexprofittrader:

I do have a problem in MT4, it does not let me put a stopless less than 8 pips.

It’s your broker that’s disallowing that, not the platform.

forexprofittrader:

For Eur/usd for example it says 4 pips (spread not included). Is this normal?

I think it’s commonly a pip better than normal, actually: a 5-pip minimum is very common for EUR/USD.

forexprofittrader:

I will search for another broker, an ECN one.

This is all more or less a myth. Whoever you use will be a counterparty unless you open an account at IB, and however good you can become at scalping, they’ll find a way to stop you because it’ll be their money you’re taking, not the market’s money.

This is one of the reasons why scalping M1 charts is an unsuitable approach.

Alright, thanks, good to know. I am still a beginner,maybe scalping is not the way to go indeed. I will stick with my broker then and maybe try some other strategies. I did see some youtube clips where they say 1 minute scalping is possible, so I wanted to give it a try.

But back to the topin (Something I dont understand - find a working EA), sometimes I read and analyze a system on the net. It all seems very nice explained and the author is very confident it will make profit. Then I think be myself, it must be possible to convert this strategy into an EA. Why is it then impossible to find an EA that makes profit 24/5?

I heard some answers, and probably you are right, manual trading is the key to success. A lot of factors to consider before entering a trade. Probably no EA can do this.

Using MT4 doesn’t help new traders at all, I think. Some of the indicators are unreliabIe, and it attracts them to EA;s, which the people betting against them love them to use, of course.

You are not fair here. You count those who just drag a bunch of indicators on the chart as people with a solid strategy.

When I say that winning is about the strategy, not the platform I mean a sound strategy. 95% (or whatever the percentage you want) of people lose money because they don’t have an solid strategy. Is a MA crossover a solid strategy? Oh please… Most of the indies available is the same info presented in a different way.

If you have a solid strategy you’ll win independently of the platform provided that the broker plays fair.

LukasVisser:

This is all more or less a myth. Whoever you use will be a counterparty unless you open an account at IB, and however good you can become at scalping, they’ll find a way to stop you because it’ll be their money you’re taking, not the market’s money.

You affirm that all MT4 brokers are market makers. I don’t believe in universal truths so I assume that some of the brokers that promote themselves as ECN brokers with access to liquidity providers are real ECN brokers. ECN brokers just get a commission from your operations, they don’t take the other part, therefore they want you to trade as much as possible and to stay in business as long as possible. If you crash your account they don’t profit anymore from you.

forexprofittrader:

But back to the topin (Something I dont understand - find a working EA), sometimes I read and analyze a system on the net. It all seems very nice explained and the author is very confident it will make profit. Then I think be myself, it must be possible to convert this strategy into an EA. Why is it then impossible to find an EA that makes profit 24/5?

Why it’s not possible to find a 25/5 winning EA? Because market conditions change and most EAs only work well on certain conditions. To write an EA that reacts properly to any kind of situations you would need to code ALL scenarios. Mate that is impossible. There is no way you can foresee any kind of event. It would be close to AI.

My advice: don’t scalp. It is way too complex if you are new to Fx. Even if you are not new it is too complex. Learn the ropes on bigger timeframes and give scalp a go after a while. Otherwise I think you could become frustrated too soon. But if you think you have a bright genuine idea for scalping try it. Please any kind of martingale strategy is not really bright nor genuine, I’ll save you time on this.

Hi, thank you for the advice. I will rest my scalping for now, and try to get a grisp on swing trading. It is true what you say about the unpredictive market. Else an EA would already be out there which can make you profit, Im sure of that.

I have been a programmer for over 20 years and programmed in C, C++, Java, C# and JavaScript. We have a saying in the software industry Garbage In Garbage Out. As at least one other programmer has stated a software program, which is effectively what an EA is, is only as good as the person that coded it.

I trade as an amatuer using cTrader, apart from the fact it has a much more modern user interface the automation language is C#, which I am programme with for a living so very familiar with it. I am nearing retirement so my motivation for trading is partly to see if I can supplement my income when I retire, but also to keep my brain active.

I have automated many systems found here on BabyPips and ForexFactory as I was learning to automate cTrader. Many of these systems are genuinely profitable when traded manually but once you take the discretion element out of it as you must when automating it they are no longer profitable.

For example if you take a trade manually and it turns on you almost immediately you can get out of it quickly. It is very difficult if not impossible to programme that kind of discretion into an EA/Bot without it ending up taking out stops on good trades. A good EA/Bot will allow you to fine tune the settings to get the best out of it but there are a few constants that you cannot avoid.

An EA/Bot will only be profitable if you run it for long enough

Market conditions will change so an EA/Bot will not be profitable all the time

You have to be prepared to accept losses

The key as in manual trading is that the wins are bigger than the losses and there are enough wins to outweigh the losses

What works on one instrument may not work on others.

As an example.

I have a cBot as they are called in cTrader that runs constantly on a desktop computer at home. It is based on a relatively simple system I found on ForexFactory. I am not allowed to embed links in posts but you can find it by searching for “Channel MA Short-Term System”. I have it set to always set a Stoploss and Profit Target with a 2:1 profit ratio. It takes trades fairly regularly on EURUSD and the general direction of the account balance is upward. The number of wins and losses is fairly balanced, marginally in favour of losses, but because the wins are always bigger than the losses the general direction of the small account balance is upward. I monitor the account and keep the trading balance at a fixed level, but leave the profits in my FxPro Vault.

When I developed the cBot and ran a backtest over the last six months it increased the account balance by over 500%. When I ran a backtest over 3 years it was less profitable but it still increased the account balance by 300%, over 5 years it was even less profitable but still increased the account balance by a little over 200%. Sadly the cTrader system doesn’t let me backtest over a longer period but my point is you can’t just run an EA/Bot for a short time and see the real capabilities. You have to run it for some time to see the real outcome, if the platform has a good backtesting tool this is easy if not you have to run it on a demo account for several months at least before judging whether it is profitable or not. In all these tests there were significant peaks and troughs in the Equity chart so in the real world there would have been opportunities to take good profits out of the account, but there were also times when one might have thought the system didn’t work as a string of losses piled up.

The cBot is quite configurable so I can tune it, but despite this there are pairs I cannot generate long term profits on. Yet when I trade these other pairs manually with the same system I can make profits.